


you told her that you loved her (but you don’t.)

by Overdressedtokill (SkyeStan)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, sadfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 07:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeStan/pseuds/Overdressedtokill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sort of speculative skyeward in 2x18 fic. grant is better and skye is… not. <i>“If he’s correct, and he usually is, he’s almost positive he hears guilt.	That’s not right.  That’s not Skye.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	you told her that you loved her (but you don’t.)

**Author's Note:**

> whoops! forgot to post this to ao3 after 2x16. originally posted to my tumblr [here](http://marysuepoots.tumblr.com/post/115805813714/you-told-her-that-you-loved-her-but-you-dont).

He’s picking out guns when she comes over, filling the spot over his shoulder that was moments ago nothing filled with nothing but kind, peaceful air.

He doesn’t like the feeling he gets when she’s near.  It makes his scars throb with a sort of knowing signal, telling him to get up and shove her away, or run, or move.  It makes his breathing tight.

And that, of course, is combined with the way he’s always been around Skye.  His heart speeds up.  His stomach knots.  His mouth goes dry.  Part of him knows better.  All of him should know better, but his body insists.  Insists on keeping him like this.

How had he ever survived it before?  It feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Agent Ward,” Skye says.  The sound of her voice is part nails on a chalkboard, part honey.  Part what he’s been longing to hear for months.  Part what he remembers in his nightmares.  “Can I have a look at your weapons cache?”

He grabs the glock that has always made him feel the safest, then immediately hates himself for the thought that he might need it.

He’s not insane.  He’s not insane.  He stands up and steps aside, as far back as he can while still watching her go through his guns.

“You know I’m not an Agent,” Grant says.  He’s proud of the way his voice sounds.  Cocky and smug, like he needs it to.  He even managed to make the word ‘Agent’ sound dirty.

Skye tilts her head up to look at him.  Her fingers are resting on his guns, and that’s starting to bother him.  “So, just Ward?”

“Just Ward,” he says.

She goes back to his guns.  “This is impressive,” she says, like that’s supposed to flatter him.

“You don’t really know guns, Skye,” Grant says.  Pauses.  “Agent Skye.”

She frowns.  “I know guns.”

He should apologize or ask her what she knows or something, anything, but what he says next.  “I think you should go back to your side of the plane.”

 

 

She stills.  He notices a slight rumble in his guns, and assumes it’s her doing.  He’s upset her.  And he promises himself, he does, that it doesn’t matter.

“I was just looking,” she says.  And if he’s correct, and he usually is, he’s almost positive he hears guilt.

That’s not right.  That’s not Skye.

“Well,” he says.  “You’ve looked.”

She rises to her feet.  Doesn’t meet his gaze.  The guns clatter in their places, shaking with her... what?   Rage?  Sadness?  He’s never been very good at Skye.  Everyone else, sure.  Never her.

She glances at his stomach.  “Ward, if you’re worried I’ll-”

“Don’t,” he says.  Manages to make his voice colder than he’s feeling.  Like he isn’t burning.  Throbbing.  Dying.  “Don’t ever bring it up.”

She doesn’t fight back, like he’s waiting for.  Doesn’t clench her fists or hold her head high.  She just bites her lip.  Like she used to.  Like she’s the same girl.

But she isn’t.  That girl, as he’s told himself a thousand times, loved a fake Grant Ward.  And he’s not the fake Grant Ward, so she is not that girl.  And he can’t ever make the mistake of treating her like she is.  Not again.

“Just,” Grant says.  “Don’t.”

 

 

She finally meets his gaze.  Slowly, tilting her head back so that her big, brown eyes peer at him from under the fringe of her bangs.

He has to take a moment.  Remind himself not to fall into her eyes.  Dark and deep and knowing.  Kind and soft and-

Full of lies.  That’s all.

“I’m glad Agent 33 is doing better,” Skye says.  “Someone needed to help her and-”

“Her name is Kara,” Grant says, before he can stop himself.

He notices the flicker in Skye’s gaze.  “Kara,” she repeats.  “I’m glad you helped her.”

Grant would say, ‘She helped me first.‘  He would.  But he’d told Skye not to talk about it.  Not to mention it near him.  He’s not going to break his own rule.

And it seems pointlessly mean, somehow.  And that’s not what he wants to be.

He should, part of him argues.  He should want to be.

But he can’t muster it.  Not when she’s barely responding.

 

 

“And I guess she helped-” Skye starts, then shakes her head.  “I thought you were dead.”

He doesn’t know what bothers him most about it.  The quiet way she says it.  The look she gives him, like she’s sorry.  Like after everything, she’s sorry.  And she brought it up.  After he’d asked her not to.

“That must’ve made your life easier,” Grant says, suddenly.  Viciously.  Before he can remember to turn the anger off.  “Right?  You must’ve been glad.  That I wouldn’t be- What was it that you called it?”

She blinks up at him.  “Ward.”

“Playing another game of ‘Let’s Kidnap Skye,’” he says. Snarls.  He’s out of line.  He’s always been out of line and he needs to stop, he needs- “Did it feel good?” he asks.  “Shooting me four times, right in the side.  Did it make you feel like a real SHIELD agent?”

It’s then that he notices her expression.  The way her eyes are staring up at him, shocked and wet.  The slight wrinkle in her nose.  The painful quivers in her chin.  He’s always noticed every piece of her.  This is wrong.  This is the part where she tells him yes, it felt good.  That she’s glad to have gunned down his ‘psycho ass.’

She is not supposed to stare at him like a deer caught in his high-beams.  She is not supposed to quietly whisper, “No.”

He swallows his heart.  Swallows it whole, and prays she’ll regain her senses.  It must be his fault.  It must be.  “I don’t believe you.”

That doesn’t snap her out of it.  It should, but it doesn’t.  She just stands there.  Sways slightly.

He’s not sure what to do.

 

 

He just stares at her.  At the bow of her lips, set in a frown. He has to say something.  Anything.  “What happened to you?”

She cocks her head in confusion.  He’s switched gears too quickly.  It’s jarring.  He knows that.  But he can’t.  He can’t make her cry.  Not even now.  Not ever.

“Excuse me?” she asks.

“Why weren’t you with Coulson?” he asks.  “Who’s your friend?  Why aren’t you-”

Skye shakes her head.  “It’s complicated,” she says.

“Which part?”

She gives a small shrug.  Blinks a few more times, to clear her eyes of stray tears.  “All of it.”

There’s a part of him burning with curiosity and quiet dread. Resting with the idea that she’s hurt, that she’s still hurting.  He could help her.  Right now.  He could reach out and touch her shoulder, and help.

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket.  “That’s a shame.”

“What about you and Kara?” Skye asks.  “What’s that?”

He could tell her the truth.  That she’d kissed him with Skye’s face, and he’d been spellbound.  That he’d only snapped out of it when he realized she didn’t kiss like Skye had at all.

But Skye will never know that.  She can’t.

“Kara and I rely on each other,” Grant says.  “Nothing complicated about it.”  He wonders how he’d feel, if she’d said the same.  About her friend.  The boy that stares at her like Grant does.  Did.  Does.  Only for brief moments.  Only when absolutely no one is looking.  Only because he can’t stop himself.

It’s kind of like the mirror he never wanted.  The person he can’t ever be.  Especially not for her.

“Do you-” Skye starts, then pauses.

He can’t.  He can’t.  “Do I love her?” he asks.  Lets the words stand between them and drive Skye back.  What happened to her?  What is he doing wrong?  “If I did, do you really think it would be your business?”

She shuts her eyes for a moment.  Pulls her lips into a line.  Tilts her head away from him.  And then she’s staring up at him again, and she’s gone.  Long gone.  Has been since they started.  “If I loved Lincoln,” Skye says.  “Wouldn’t you want to know?”

The idea of it makes him sick.  Makes him ache down to his bones.  “No.”

 

 

Something lights up behind her eyes.  Something beautiful and fiery and _Skye_.  For just the hint of a moment, she smirks.  “I don’t believe you,” she says.  She sounds like herself.  Clear as a bell.

It makes his heart thud against his ribs. Makes him certain that’s he’s found the right tune.  He just has to press forward. “Don’t come back over here,” he says, cocky as he was in the beginning.  Seals his fate because he has to.  “I don’t want to speak to you again.  We have nothing to discuss.”  He waits for her reply.  The flip of her hair and the burning glare to go with it.

Which is exactly when her face falls.  And he feels as if she’s punched him.  No, no.  He didn’t- She’d had it back.  She’s supposed to laugh in his face, cruel and beautiful and sure.

She’s not supposed to take a step back from him, look at him like he’s wounded her irreparably.

The last time.  The last time, she’d had all the fire she’d needed to hate him.

She isn’t supposed to hate herself.  This isn’t supposed to happen.

She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket.  Rubs at her eyes.  “I-” She swallows.  The ground beneath the rumbles for just a moment, remnant a wave crashing onto the shore.  “I’m sorry.”

No.  He’s sorry.  He’s always been sorry.  But he can’t make this right.  He never could. 

There’s something on the tip of his tongue.  An apology, or a question, or his hand reaching out to swipe the tears off her cheeks.

The last time she’d cried in front of him, it had been a fake.  Why not that?  Why not now?

She sniffles against her sleeve.  Refuses to look at him.  And something in him is shouting, not at her but at himself, shouting like it always has because she’s turned from him, her shoulders hunched and her hands on her face.  She’s walking away, he’s just going to let her walk away-

 

 

He can’t look at her anymore.  Can only listen to the heavy footsteps of her boots as they grow fainter and fainter until they’re gone. 

He flattens his hand over his mouth and screams.  Screams until he’s out of air and the sound has gone and his lungs beg him to stop.

All he needs, all he really needs, is for her to hate him again.  Because that’s easy.  That’s where they belong.  Where she’s safest.

It’s better than this.  It has to be.

Because if she loves him, if she really, really did-

He’d never be able to look at her again. 


End file.
